


Witch Weather

by Brillador



Series: Our Fine Town (Next Generation) [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Family, Gen, Magical Accidents, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nature Magic, Next Generation, Next-Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9399950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brillador/pseuds/Brillador
Summary: Inspired by the "witch weather" post circulating around Tumblr. A brief character study of Téa Gold on a stormy afternoon.





	

Téa liked standing outside right before a storm.

She was waiting for the pregnant clouds. They had a heavy presence in the sky, bulbous yet vaporish gods descending to make the world tremble. She wasn’t afraid. She marveled at them, and she marveled at the strange likeness she felt for these beasts of wind, cold, heat and rain. She smiled as they came closer.

“Téa?” Belle held her jacket tight around herself to keep out the wind. The first splashes of water hit her cheek, her eyelid. Her hair whipped sideways, sometimes across her face. She had to push it back while also bracing the jacket’s lapels to her chest. She’d spotted her daughter from the living room window. Why was Téa standing in the yard like that? The girl was tilting her head back. Her arms were spread, fingers crooked and tense like talons. She looked ready to fly or be carried away by something terrible. Something irresistible.

A sensible mother, Belle dashed out the door to fetch her.

She stopped short on the porch steps at the first spark.

A flicker of electric light sprinted down Téa’s right arm. It fizzled off her fingertips. Another did the same down her left arm. More chased after. The wind lifted the girl’s long hair. No, not just the wind. Her hair frizzed with static.

Belle glimpsed at the storm cloud shadowing the town. A distant flash lit its underbelly. A frightened sob jumped halfway up her throat. “Téa!”

Téa heard her mother. Guilt nicked her heart for not answering. She wanted to shout the usual excuse: “Just a minute!” But she couldn’t speak. She dared not break this spell. The energy—the magic—flowed through her. Every hair prickled. Arcs of electricity crackled around her hands. Her breath came in short bursts. The sensations titillated and frightened her, like when one looks at a faraway volcano or forest fire. Better than that, the energy was coming partly from herself. She and the storm were synchronized. She was tethered to nature itself, the ancient power of creation.

Her mother’s voice was farther away than the distance between the porch stairs and the edge of their lawn. She tasted the profound solitude.

Eyes closed, she embraced the isolation. Then her lids lifted. The world transformed into blue-white brilliance. Colors were sapped away by magnified luminescence. Even the darkest patches hummed with vibrancy.

All at once, her mother was close. Too close. The tendrils of burning plasma reached out behind her. She pulled them in by closing her hand. As though warned, her mother circled around beyond arm’s length.

Belle gasped and trembled. She saw her daughter’s eyes. They were glowing. The gray irises had disappeared behind white light, tinged with ozone blue.

“Téa. Sweetheart.”

The headlights for eyes turned to her. Téa’s brows pinched. “Mum?” Her voice echoed like faint thunder. It was almost lost in the churning air around them.

The storm was cracking open like a dragon’s egg. Lightning flashed in the town-wide cloud. If they didn’t run into the house’s safe embrace—Belle didn’t want to think what would happen. She was shaking. Even so, a surge of will steadied the tremors that nearly overtook her voice.

“Hey, sweetheart. We—we should go in. It’s about to rain.”

Fluttering lashes shadowed blazing eyes. “Do I have to?”

Belle pushed the fear out of her countenance with a smile. “Afraid so. Wouldn’t want to get drenched, right?”

A thoughtless move. She could blame instinct, that irrepressible need to touch her strange, wonderful child. Her good sense tried to catch her halfway. The tips of her fingers came too close. A finger of white fire touched them. Pain and heat leapt down to her toes, through her brain, throwing her into blackness.

“MUMMY!”

* * *

It was all so fragile. This was the first time she comprehended that fact.

She did as her mother said. With a quick spell, they were both in the house. Mother was resting on the sofa. Téa sat with the singed hand in her heated grasp. A little warmth, a little blood, moved through Mum’s fingers, but she was cool and motionless. An ear to her chest proved that breath still pumped in and out of her lungs. Barely.

When Pop came home, Téa leapt to him. Tears rushed down like the rain outside. She was sorry. She was unbearably sorry. It was an accident. She couldn’t stop it. Please, please, please, Pop, please make Mummy well.

He was next to Mum in a heartbeat. He checked her pulse and breathing. After a few silent, terrifying minutes, his serious expression turned to her. “Love, can you fetch something for me?”

She followed his instructions to the letter. The brown bottle was on the lower shelf of the china cabinet, his essential supply. Much as she wanted to run, she would not risk dropping the bottle. On her return to the living room, Pop accepted the bottle and poured a syrupy lotion on his fingers. He rubbed it on Mum’s burnt hand, then up her arm. He plucked the first button on her blouse and spread a dollop on her chest. Téa could smell it: a sweet, mildly tangy, sappy scent like aloe or cactus juice. A soothing lotion that, at the same time, warmed the blood to its normal temperature. Color returned to her mother’s face. Her breathing deepened. She remained asleep, but Pop said that was for the best right now. He moved to a chair near the window and motioned for her to follow.

“What happened?” he whispered. The tender tone calmed her heart. The tears kept falling regardless.

Téa sniffed. “I was watching the storm. I wanted to—to feel it.”

Her tongue turned to iron. How could she let it happen? She should’ve realized what a thunderstorm was: beautiful, deadly power. Too dangerous to let anyone get close. How could she want that? No, never again.

Pop leaned toward the window, then back to her. “The lawn is in a bit of a mess. Did that happen when—?”

She peered out through the spattered glass. The droplets didn’t hide the obvious scorch marks that turned much of the once green grass to blackened ash. Even the sidewalk wasn’t spared.

“I got scared when the lightning hit Mum. I lost control.” Her whole body shook as she inhaled. “After that I got us inside, like you taught me.”

The last comment smoothed away half of the lines in her father’s face. His small smile beckoned her to crush herself into his chest and muffle her renewed sobs with the unexpectedly soft fabric of his suit jacket.

Maybe he understood enough that he didn’t let himself get angry. Maybe he thought himself a little to blame, she occasionally wondered. He had magic; he’d passed it on to her. That’s how it worked, right? But she’d never seen him use magic like _this_. Or he’d never let her see it, afraid, perhaps, that she would sense its allure, the sublime serenity of a storm that boils yet comforts.

In his protective arms, she told herself never to seek it again.

But guilt and fear fade once the consequences are rectified. Mum awoke a couple hours later with a headache and a hazy memory. Her clothes, partly singed, had been swapped by a summoning spell. After some wary hesitation that stabbed Téa in the ribs, her mother cupped her face, kissed her, hugged her. The pain in her torso was muted.

Weeks went by without another storm. But autumn rolled in. The opportunity came again, and Téa sat at the living room window, pining. She hungered for the charged air, the snapping gusts, the first watery sprinkles. She ached to reunite with the vastness, just for a moment.

At her most dangerous, most alone, she’d never felt so alive.

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably one of the strangest ficlets I'll ever post on this site, and certainly for this verse. As well as exploring Rumple and Belle's child and her relationship with her innate power, I wanted to throw in a little foreshadowing of the kind of future awaiting her. But mostly I like it as a snapshot not just of her, but of her parents' feelings and reactions to their daughter's abilities.


End file.
